The only commercials people want to see... the SuperBowl ads. Overall the batch of ads this year wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. There were a few pretty funny ones, and some that were pretty strange. I thought I would highlight some of the ones I liked, ones America liked, and some that I and/or America hated.
The number one commercial according to USA Today's Ad Meter was the Snickers commercial with Betty White. This one made me chuckle, but I wouldn't have thought it would take the #1 spot. I think it was a hit more so among older people than younger people, though it was pretty cute.
The Doritos commercials provided a lot of laughs among the company I was with. America's favorite, coming in at #2, was the dog shock collar. My favorite Doritos commercial, however, as well as my favorite commercial from the whole night, was the kid talking to his mom's date. I think this commercial left our room laughing the longest and the hardest, so I was really surprised to see it only come in at #11 on the chart.
But let's face it, all the Doritos commercials were pretty good, and I'm pretty sure they were all made by amateurs, via a contest they have been holding the past few years. I think this is proof that there are plenty of ordinary who have good ideas for commercials.
Budweiser had some pretty funny ones as usual, with three of their ads landing in the top 10 of USA Today's meter. None of them really stuck out to me, though that baby cow and Clydesdale were pretty cute.
Coming in at #6 on the meter was the Audi commercial, which I thought was EXTREMELY obnoxious. I can't believe it scored that well. I didn't find it funny, just annoying, and after it was over Elissa said, "I don't want an Audi anymore," and I'm pretty sure she spoke for everyone in the room. Apparently America disagreed with us.
A few years ago E*Trade introduced their talking baby commercials, and America has been hooked on them ever since. They used up all their footage with the old baby, so it was a little sad and surprising to see a new baby. Despite this, one of the E*Trade commercials came in at #7, and I have to agree it was pretty cute.
Bridgestone bachelor party, Monster.com's beaver, cars.com, and sadly I must admit, Megan Fox's for Motorola, were others in the Top 20 that I enjoyed. I thought most of the car commercials were lame, but Hyundai's commercial with Brett Farve as MVP was pretty funny. Denny's commercials with the chickens was sort of funny the first time, but not so much after. Diamond Foods came in at #22 (Emerald Nuts and Pop Secret) but I didn't care for it. Intel and Google's efforts to warm my heart kind of worked but were not among my faves. The Coke commercials were kind of cute, particularly the sleepwalking one, but again, not my faves.
Then there was the "underpants" theme, with the back-to-back commercials for CareerBuilder and Dockers. America seemed to agree that CareerBuilder and Dockers had missed the mark. I'm also dying to know why Sketchers spent so much money on such a lame commercial that didn't even try to act like a SuperBowl commercial.
The last commercial I want to talk about is the Focus on the Family one. A Yahoo blogger I read this morning said it well: "Much ado about nothing. That's the best way to sum up the Focus on the Family ad starring Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. The ad had been the subject of much controversy in the weeks leading up to big game. Would it have a strong antiabortion angle? Well, not really. The ad featured Mr. Tebow and his mom discussing how he was a difficult birth and a 'miracle baby,' but, of course, the mom is just thrilled with the way things turned out."
Maybe the people who wanted to create such a fuss over the ad should have waited to see the ad first. There was absolutely no reason for the fuss at all, other than the fact that they probably hate Focus on the Family, and now they've just given Focus on the Family publicity. Maybe they'll keep their mouths shut next time.
What commercials were your favorites?
6 comments:
i definitely think the tim tebow commercial is more influential and says a lot more about American mindset than you think. if you research the kinds of commercials that have not been allowed during the Superbowl time slot... to allow an ad with a definite conservative bent says a lot. did you see the ad that was a "rebuttal" to the tim tebow ad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utcxpuHF7jg
After I wrote my post I read a blog where someone mentioned how the Super Bowl ads had never gotten anywhere near politics, religion, etc. before, until this year with this ad. I had never thought of it that way, but it was true.
However, in response to the rebuttal ad you linked to, they obviously created it before the game, because they mentioned how Tim Tebow's mom shared about how she made a difficult medical decision, when she did not in fact share this. It's probably a part of the story you can read by going on the Focus on the Family website, but it's not in the commercial. When I saw the commercial, I thought they had either changed it or their would be a follow-up, because I heard nothing akin about not aborting Tim, she simply said he almost didn't make it. That could have been a difficult birth or a great many deal of other things.
Yes, they allowed an ad with a conservative slant in, but they paid for it. They have banned other ads from playing, which I don't necessarily agree or disagree with, but they decided they were offensive. My only fear is that next year some other group (like Planned Parenthood) might strike back and we might be left with an ongoing battle of politics right there in the middle of the Super Bowl. That would be unfortunate.
Anna's husband posted a really great article about a week or two ago on Facebook. It's written from the perspective of someone who is pro-choice, but had no problem with Tebow's ad:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102067.html
(second paragraph) *there, not their
Lol, I think Google's commercial was mine and John's favorite; then again, we did just through assembling the crib so it sort of hit close to home.
I didn't have a problem with the aid per se, but I was just surprised they aired it.
I loved the Dorito's commercial. I was laughing about that one for a long time! And as crazy as this sounds. I loved the Budwiesher commercial. It just had a good message to it, and thats what I really liked. It was a good game too!
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